About Those Leaflets Ordering Jews to Register in Ukraine

Vladimir Putin's best friend, a Russian oligarch, is Jewish. A part of the Ukrainian Fascist Party assisted with the Kiev uprising, whether the revolutionaries wanted them around or not. It's inconvenient. It doesn't make Vladimir Putin any better.

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The Internet burned yesterday with reports coming out of east Ukraine that Jews are being ordered to register with the government. Israeli and Ukrainian media first ran the story, which was picked up globally, of Jews leaving a synagogue in the city of Donestk being handed leaflets telling them to register with the "temporary government" or risk getting kicked out of the country. The "temporary government" is made up of separatists who wish to unite east Ukraine with Russia.

Many were quick to draw a very clear line between the Nazi awfulness of registering Jews to Vladimir Putin himself and maybe they are right. Maybe it is really that simple and Putin is the new all-singing, all-dancing evil of the world. Or maybe the scene is slightly more complicated.

On March 4, Putin gave his first press conference after invading Crimea. He wore a boxy grey suit and, sitting underneath a chandelier, he carried on about why Russia was intervening in Ukrainian affairs. And do you know why? Partially to protect the country from "masked and unidentified armed groups of anti-Semites."

During the uprising in Kiev, the flag of the Ukrainian Fascist Party flew over the central square. It is unclear how many fascists were involved in the revolution, or are involved in the transitional government, but to Putin, and many Russians, it echoes World War II when then Soviet Russia fought Nazi Germany. It echoes Stepan Bandera, a controversial figure in Ukraine's history who fought for Ukrainian independence from the Soviet Union and had close ties to Adolf Hitler.

Anti-Semitism is on the rise throughout Europe and, in Ukraine, attacks on synagogues have gone up since the unrest began. It is not a pleasant situation, but it's also something that theoretically goes very much against Putin's own interests. Some of the most powerful oligarchs in Russia, including Putin's best friend Roman Abramovich, are Jewish. Now, certainly, he could be fomenting ugliness against Jews in Ukraine as shots across their bows but it seems unlikely. It seems too crude.

Yes, the stakes have been raised once again in Ukraine as Russia stares down the west and a knee-jerk "Putin is the bad guy! He is the new Hitler!" response is fun and easy. I'm totally bored of Islamic radicals being my enemy too. Alas, it's probably not true. Bummer.